Janesville Women’s History Mural

Description:
The Janesville Women’s History Mural celebrates the 1860 to 1890 time period when visionary Janesville, Wisconsin, women made remarkable contributions to their community. The central figures are a representative early suffragist and her daughter. They honor the Janesville women who in 1867 were the first in Wisconsin to begin organized conversations about women’s rights. These suffrage meetings were occurring more than 50 years before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

The mural also honors Wisconsin’s first and third female attorneys, the club women who lobbied successfully for the city’s first public hospital and first free public library and the laboring women who dominated the work force of the booming textile mills. The Janesville Women’s History Mural was dedicated in honor of community leader Judi Kneece on August 26, 2010, Women’s Equality Day and the 90th anniversary of women’s right to vote.

It hangs on the west face of the Rock County Courthouse. It is the fourth in the Heart of the City series of murals in Downtown Janesville, Wisconsin. The Janesville Women’s History Mural was sponsored by the Friends of Judi Kneece and the Janesville Design & Development Center.